Flying can be stressful even for the most experienced business traveler. No matter how many items we check off our preflight “to do” list, sometimes the best-laid plans go awry.
Düsseldorf Airport
That’s just what happened to one hapless passenger who accidentally left a painting worth $340,000 behind at Düsseldorf Airport when he boarded his flight to Tel Aviv.
The businessman, who has not been identified, had wrapped the masterpiece discreetly in cardboard. He immediately contacted airport authorities to alert them to be on the lookout for the 16X24-inch work by French surrealist Yves Tanguyart, but the masterpiece seemed to have vanished into thin air.
With no leads forthcoming, the businessman’s nephew decided to take matters into his own hands. After hopping a flight from Belgium to Düsseldorf, the would-be sleuth met with the police in person. Thankfully, from that point on, clues to the puzzle began to take shape.
Düsseldorf Airport
An inspector deduced that the cardboard-clad painting had found its way into a paper recycling bin. When a search was subsequently conducted in what might amount to the most lucrative dumpster-dive in history, the precious package was found, unharmed, at the bottom of the bin. Tragedy averted. Artwork saved.
“This was definitely one of our happiest stories this year,” police spokesman Andre Hartwig told the AP. “It was real detective work.”
Two women who discovered they were sisters on Facebook while separately searching for their long-lost dad have been reunited with him after 24 years—just in time for Christmas.
33-year-old Lisa McLean and 24-year-old Rebecca Parton found each other on social media while searching for their father David Riggs back in 2016.
SWNS
They’ve since gone on to form a close sisterly bond—with Rebecca even acting as bridesmaid at Lisa’s wedding last year.
After meeting, the pair failed to give up on their Facebook search for their father.
Finally, three weeks ago, their online appeal received a positive hit: Lisa received a friend request from David. She realized he was their genuine dad after he was able to identify people in childhood family photographs.
Last week, 53-year-old David traveled down from his home in Blackpool, England to meet his daughters for the first time in over twenty years.
SWNS
The emotional reunion took place at Lisa’s house in Nottingham, where David also got to meet his grandchildren for the first time.
They are now set to spend their first Christmas and New Year together as a complete family.
Mom-of-five Lisa, who is a carer, said: “It was just lovely… there’s a lot of catching up to do—a lot of years to catch up on. The only way I can describe it, it’s a bit cheesy, but I suppose it is a Christmas miracle.
SWNS
Former Blackpool Pier maintenance worker David described feeling “like he’d won the lottery” and was the “happiest man in the world” after meeting his daughters.
SPREAD the Love – Share on Social Media to Inspire Your Friends…
Aside from exercising and staying outside, light lamp therapy can be used to treat seasonal affective disorder in people who must remain indoors for work, COVID, or both.
There is nothing wrong with acknowledging one has seasonal affective disorder (SAD). It’s a simple confusion in the brain arising from changes in seasons and can affect anyone.
Boston University claims 10 million Americans get low moods in the winter months, when across a large part of the continental U.S, the sun sets at around 5:30pm.
All kinds of slight disfunctions can occur if someone stays inside all day. Research on office workers bears witness to changes in mood, dietary preferences, vitamin D deficiencies, and more, and while even in normal years, winter has people indoors more than they would be in summer, COVID-19 has exacerbated the problem.
Often one of the reasons why SAD can affect people so strongly in the winter time is because the sky is more often overcast. Cells in our eyes known as melanopsin detect light spectrums to determine what time of day it is, and an overcast sky all day can interfere with their calculations.
One method for treating this is to, so to speak, get an artificial sun—one that can beam right into your home or office.
Light lamp therapy
Circadian rhythms, the series of biological attunement of the organism to the day-night cycle in its environment, are present in every living thing, and in nearly every tissue of living things. It’s safe to say they are important.
When our brain senses the light from the sun is gone, it signals the creation of melatonin in the pineal gland. Of course, at 5:00pm, few in the modern world is ready for bed. Some people use light lamps to trick their brain into thinking it’s still daytime.
However it’s not only the detection of falling sunlight that determines melatonin production. It’s also the presence of sunlight during the day that helps produce melatonin at night.
One needs a strong lamp to replicate the kind of sunlight exposure examined in this study. A therapy lamp must deliver 5,000 to 10,000 lux, compared to the 800-900 lux provided by an early evening sky or the 100-400 provided from normal indoor lighting.
Studies show it’s an effective treatment for SAD, as well as the counterfactual—that blue-light usage after dark through LED screens can create depression in mice.
If one were to combine the use of a light lamp during the daylight hours, with use of blue-light filters to remove the sunlight spectrum from devices and computers around the time that the sun would go down in summer, for example around 8:30pm, the positive effect could be stronger.
Katie Sharkey at Brown University told Vox the pros and cons of using a light lamp, namely that they truly work for treating SAD, but that one has to be careful about using it at the right moment of the day.
If used too early in the day you’ll find yourself becoming tired before your normal bedtime, while using it too late can prevent you from falling asleep.
Despite this, a therapy lamp is definitely an option, like vitamin D or exercise, for treating SAD, and while Sharkey warns they can cause side-effects like headache or interference with other medicines, it’s a cheap treatment option that can be discussed with any kind of mental health professional, and can cost as little as $50.
PASS on the Positive Rays and Share This Story With Friends…
Quote of the Day: “Even in the darkest time, the sun is not vanquished… Let us all bring more light and compassion into the world.” – Dacha Avelin (on the Winter Solstice)
Photo by: NOAA
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Virtually all new parents quickly discover that a lullaby will in fact help an infant unwind, but they might be surprised to learn that babies aren’t fussy about the language.
Researchers at Harvard’s Music Lab have determined that American infants relaxed when played lullabies that were unfamiliar and in a foreign language.
“Common sense tells us that infants find the lullabies they hear relaxing,” said Samuel Mehr, a Department of Psychology research associate and principal investigator at the Music Lab. “Is this just because they’ve experienced their parents’ singing before and know it means they’re safe and secure? Or is there also something universal about lullabies that produces these effects, independently of experience?”
Infants responded to universal elements of songs, despite the unfamiliarity of their melodies and words, and relaxed. The study was conducted in 2018 and 2019 at the Music Lab, which focuses on the psychology of music from infancy to adulthood.
In the experiment, each infant watched an animated video of two characters singing either a lullaby or a non-lullaby. To measure the infants’ relaxation responses to the recordings, the researchers focused on pupil dilation, heart rate changes, electrodermal activity (a measure of “arousal” or excitement, from electrical resistance of the skin), frequency of blinking, and gaze direction as indicators of relaxation or agitation.
The Music Lab
Generally, the infants experienced a decrease in heart rate and pupil dilation, and attenuated electrodermal activity in response to the unfamiliar lullabies.
The researchers had to act quickly because of their subjects’ limited attention spans; most babies could pay attention for about five minutes before getting distracted.
“In an ideal world, we would play babies a dozen songs that are lullabies and a dozen songs that are not lullabies and gather a lot of data from each infant. But an infant’s attention span is short, so the experiment is short too,” Mila Bertolo, co-first author of the research, told the Harvard Gazette.
The songs were chosen through a previous Music Lab study, in which adults rated how likely a foreign unfamiliar song was to be a lullaby, a dance song, a healing song, or a love song. Using a cross-cultural sample of adult-rated lullabies helped the researchers avoid incorporating their own selection bias, where they might be more inclined to choose songs that most closely resembled a Western lullaby, said Bertolo.
The 16 songs selected for the experiment came from the Natural History of Song Discography, and included lullabies and other songs originally produced to express love, heal the sick, or encourage dancing. Languages like Scottish Gaelic, Hopi, and Western Nahuatl, and regions including Polynesia, Central America, and the Middle East were represented in the songs chosen.
“Melody is one of the things that sticks out for lullabies. In comparison, in a lot of other song types, such as dance songs, you would see rhythm as being more of a driving force,” explained Connie Bainbridge, who co-led the research with Bertolo in the Music Lab, and is now pursuing a Ph.D. in communication at UCLA.
Separately, researchers asked parents to listen to both types of song and choose which they would use to soothe their infant. They almost always chose the lullaby, indicating that they also recognized the universal elements of the lullaby, even subconsciously. “Calming a fussy infant is an urgent matter for parents. Those of us with kids might be particularly sensitive to the acoustic features that appear universally in lullabies, as these may be most likely to calm our infants efficiently,” said Mehr.
The findings are “a testament to how effective music is,” said Bertolo. “This piece of the puzzle helps us make sense of certain kind of downstream effects” like music therapy in clinical settings. “It’s an interesting question to see whether the same thing that drives the relaxation for infants would carry through into adulthood.”
The researchers predict that the results could be replicated with a different group of subjects from another culture. They also plan to continue investigating questions raised during the experiment, such as which of the specific acoustical elements of a lullaby encourage relaxation, how singing interacts with other activities and environments to induce relaxation, and what inferences infants might make during listening.
The research provides evidence that singing can help infants relax — and in doing so might improve daily life for both child and caregiver.
“While the music in general was relaxing, there was something about the lullabies that was especially relaxing, so in theory there could be ways to optimize the music we provide to infants, to make them more effective,” added Bainbridge. “Additionally, it’s an interesting area to explore as far as the function of music — is it an adaptation that we evolved to have or a byproduct of language or auditory cognition? Our findings do seem to support the idea that there is actually an evolutionary function of music.”
Source: Harvard – See additional stories on music and babies at The Music Lab.
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY – Week beginning December 17, 2020
Copyright by Rob Brezsny, FreeWillAstrology.com
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
According to researcher Nick Watts and his documentary film The Human Footprint, the average person speaks more than 13 million words in a lifetime, or about 4,300 per day. But I suspect and hope that your output will increase in 2021. I think you’ll have more to say than usual—more truths to articulate, more observations to express, more experiences to describe. So please raise your daily quota of self-expression to account for your expanded capacity to share your intelligence with the world.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
“Our thinking should have a vigorous fragrance, like a wheat field on a summer’s night,” wrote philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. I encourage you to adopt that joyful mandate as your own. It’s a perfect time to throw out stale opinions and moldy ideas as you make room for an aromatic array of fresh, spicy notions. To add to your bliss, get rid of musty old feelings and decaying dreams and stinky judgments. That brave cleansing will make room for the arrival of crisp insights that smell really good.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
Have you heard the term “catastrophize”? It refers to when people experience a small setback or minor problem but interpret it as being a major misfortune. It’s very important that you not engage in catastrophizing during the coming weeks. I urge you to prevent your imagination from jumping to awful conclusions that aren’t warranted. Use deep breathing and logical thinking to coax yourself into responding calmly. Bonus tip: In my view, the small “setback” you experience could lead to an unexpected opportunity—especially if you resist the temptation to catastrophize.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
My Buddhist friend Marcia says the ultimate goal of her meditation practice is to know that the material world is an illusion and that there is no such thing “I” or “you,” no past or future. There is only the quality-less ground of being. My Sufi friend Roanne, on the other hand, is a devotee of the poet Rumi. The ultimate goal of her meditation practice is to be in intimate contact, in tender loving communion, with the Divine Friend, the personal face of the Cosmic Intelligence. Given your astrological omens, Pisces, I’d say you’re in a prime position to experience the raw truth of both Marcia’s and Roanne’s ideals. The coming days could bring you amazing spiritual breakthroughs!
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Temporary gods are deities who come alive and become available for particular functions, and are not otherwise necessary or called upon. For instance, in ancient Greece, the god Myiagros showed up when humans made sacrifices to the goddess Athena. His task was to shoo away flies. I encourage you to invent or invoke such a spirit for the work you have ahead of you. And what’s that work? 1. To translate your recent discoveries into practical plans. 2. To channel your new-found freedom into strategies that will ensure freedom will last. 3. To infuse the details of daily life with the big visions you’ve harvested recently. What will you name your temporary god?
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
Author Virginia Woolf said that we don’t wholly experience the unique feelings that arise in any particular moment. They take a while to completely settle in, unfold, and expand. From her perspective, then, we rarely “have complete emotions about the present, only about the past.” With that as your starting point, Taurus, I invite you to take a journey through the last 11 months and thoroughly evolve all the emotions that weren’t entirely ripe when they originally appeared. Now is an excellent time to deepen your experience of what has already happened; to fully bloom the seeds that have been planted.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
“Wonder is a bulky emotion,” writes author Diane Ackerman. “When you let it fill your heart and mind, there isn’t room for anxiety, distress, or anything else.” I’d love for you to use her observation as a prescription in 2021, Gemini. According to my understanding of the coming year’s astrological portents, you will have more natural access to wonder and amazement and awe than you’ve had in a long time. And it would make me happy to see you rouse those primal emotions with vigor—so much so that you drive away at least some of the flabby emotions like anxiety, which are often more neurotic than real.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
I’ll use the words of author Estefanía Mitre to tell you the kind of intimate ally you deserve. If for some inexplicable reason you have not enjoyed a relationship like this before now, I urge you to make 2021 the year that you finally do. And if you HAVE indeed been lucky in this regard, I bet you’ll be even luckier in 2021. Here’s Mitre: “You deserve a lover who wants you disheveled . . . who makes you feel safe . . . who wants to dance with you . . . who never gets tired of studying your expressions . . . who listens when you sing, who supports you when you feel shame and respects your freedom . . . who takes away the lies and brings you hope.”
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
In 2019, singer Ariana Grande got Japanese characters tattooed on her palm. She believed them to be a translation of the English phrase “7 Rings,” which was the title of a song she had released. But knowledgeable observers later informed her that the tattoo’s real meaning was “small charcoal grill.” She arranged to have alterations made, but the new version was worse: “Japanese barbecue grill finger.” I offer you this story for two reasons, Leo. First, I applaud the creativity and innovative spirit that have been flowing through you. Second, I want to make sure that you keep them on the right track—that they continue to express what you want them to express. With proper planning and discernment, they will.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
While sleeping, most of us have over a thousand dreams every year. Many are hard to remember and not worth remembering. But a beloved few can be life-changers. They have the potential to trigger epiphanies that transform our destinies for the better. In my astrological opinion, you are now in a phase when such dreams are more likely than usual. That’s why I invite you to keep a recorder or a pen and notebook by your bed so as to capture them. For inspiration, read this testimony from Jasper Johns, whom some call America’s “foremost living artist”: “One night I dreamed that I painted a large American flag, and the next morning I got up and I went out and bought the materials to begin it.” Painting flags ultimately became one of Johns’ specialties.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
I composed a prayer that’s in alignment with your current astrological omens. If it feels right, say it daily for the next ten days. Here it is: “Dear Higher Self, Guardian Angel, and Future Me: Please show me how to find or create the key to the part of my own heart that’s locked up. Reveal the secret to dissolving any inhibitions that interfere with my ability to feel all I need to feel. Make it possible for me to get brilliant insights into truths that will enable me to lift my intimate alliances to the next level.”
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
Author Herman Hesse observed, “Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world.” I hope you will prove him wrong in 2021, Scorpio. According to my reading of astrological omens, the rhythms of life will be in alignment with yours if you do indeed make bold attempts to favor music over noise, joy over pleasure, soul over gold, creative work over business, passion over foolery. Moreover, I think this will be your perfect formula for success—a strategy that will guarantee you’ll feel at home in the world more than ever before.
WANT MORE? Listen to Rob’s EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES, 4-5 minute meditations on the current state of your destiny — or subscribe to his unique daily text message service at: RealAstrology.com
When drivers in Charleston, West Virginia heard the sirens of police cars behind them last week, many got a holiday reprieve to brighten their day.
The South Charleston Police Department was giving out gift cards, instead of tickets, to the traffic rule-breakers.
“BIG shout out to SCPD,” wrote Jeanna McCallister Lilly on Facebook. “I ran a red light (accidentally of course) and was, as expected, pulled over. The officer took my ID and car info and when he came back, he surprised me by NOT giving me a ticket, but a gift card for Chik-Fil-A.”
“How wonderful is that??”
The franchise restaurant approached officers at the local Fraternal Order of Police lodge, according to the South Charleston Police Department’s Facebook page, asking if they’d like to hand out the gift cards for the holidays. They acquired $500 worth of cards to distribute.
Officer Robert Yeager told WCHS News that officers were stopping drivers as usual for traffic violations but surprised them with $10 gift cards.
“Usually, people aren’t too happy when you pull them over, but to put a smile on someone’s face like that, it’s a good feeling,” Patrol Officer Justin Morris told the news team.
While the world shelters in place to see if a vaccine might end the COVID-19 pandemic, a body of researchers are suggesting that if the scientific community only took studies on certain plant compounds a little farther, widespread effective treatments could be developed that ward off this coronavirus and future ones.
These include resveratrol and flavonoids collectively known as polyphenols, containing impressive flu-fighting elements such as quercetin, luteolin, fisetin, curcumin, and.
Gaining a lot of popularity as an anti-aging supplement, resveratrol is a powerful antioxidant that also helps suppress pro-inflammatory compounds like IL-6 and TNF-alpha that are associated with disease, the latter of which involved in every disease known to man.
This was demonstrated in a study, described here, where healthy individuals were given a 6-week course of 40mg of resveratrol derived from the extract of a plant called Japanese knotweed.
Currently, resveratrol, a compound present in most plants which is expressed when they experience stress, is being looked at as a potential ameliorator of viral infections including seasonal influenza and COVID-19.
Resveratrol is found in the skin and stems of plants, and famously can be found in trace amounts in red wine due to the stress put on the plants during the winemaking process. – Amos Bar-Zeev
Anti-aging and antiviral
One of the principle ways resveratrol influences longevity is by acting as a mimic for the effects of calorie restriction on sirtuin activation.
A study in Nature reports a finding in yeast cells that showed, “resveratrol mimics calorie restriction by stimulating sirtuin-2, increasing DNA stability and extending lifespan by 70%”.
Now being examined as a potential co-factor in a possible COVID-19 treatment, one can see other ways in which resveratrol can help extend lifespan.
Its main antiviral mechanisms inhibit viral protein synthesis, inhibit various transcription and signaling pathways, and inhibit viral related gene expressions—in other words it makes it harder for viral cells to live, being that viruses hijack our own cells’ reproductive and regenerative functions for their own nefarious purposes.
One exhaustive study looked to pair plant phytochemicals like flavonoids with the now FDA-approved hydroxychloroquine as a way to stop the docking mechanism of COVID-19. Resveratrol was examined as it has been found to inhibit one of COVID’s corona-cousins: MERS.
Resveratrol was also found to ameliorate other virus like pseudorabies and HIV-1.
The study found resveratrol to have moderate success, but with luteolin, kaempferol, and quercetin having the largest success. These are all polyphenols or flavonoids that are found in fruits but mostly vegetables, with quercetin being one of the most commonly-consumed polyphenols in society.
Foods and supplements that provide COVID-fighting flavonoids
Unfortunately, resveratrol is difficult to consume with only foods. It has poor oral-bioavailability and despite what your bartender tells you about its presence in red wine, you’d die of alcohol poisoning before getting any beneficial amount of resveratrol from drinking.
In reality, a supplement is what’s needed, stored in a cold dark environment, and taken with a meal with a moderate amount of fat. Many studies on the beneficial effects of resveratrol have used resveratrol taken from Japanese knotweed, and those looking to follow the science to the letter would seek a knotweed supplement.
Quercetin, which was shown to disrupt the docking systems of SARS-CoV-1 and 2, is found most richly in capers, but also in a variety of vegetables like the leaves of cilantro, radish, and fennel, and red onions and watercress. Kaempferol, found in arugula and kale, is also available in significant amounts in raw or canned capers. Luteolin, with proven antiviral effects on SARS CoV-1, a pandemic in China back in 2003, and can be found according to one literature review in carrots, peppers, celery, olive oil, peppermint, thyme, rosemary and oregano.
Quote of the Day: “Don’t think too far into the future. Use what you have right now & see the magic of your being.” – Rajesh Goyal
Photo by: Almos Bechtold
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
GNN is happy to announce that we’ve partnered with FabFitFun to promote their “Winter Box” and GNN users will receive $10 off the box using code ‘GNN10.’ And, perhaps the best part: $10 from each box sold using our code will be donated to support Stand Up To Cancer.
The box—available in the US, UK, and Canada—is valued at over $200 but it costs just $39, when you use the code GNN10.
Every season, FabFitFun members receive a selection of 8-10 products, some of which are curated by their team of experts, while others can be customized based on personal taste and preferences. The FabFitFun Box includes products from both premium and emerging brands.
I got my box and loved the robe, cups, and incredibly cozy thick socks, which are pictured at the top of the page.
FabFitFun will give 100% of all donations made in the Winter Add On Sale and Winter Edit Sale between October 29, 2020 – January 14, 2021, to Stand Up To Cancer, which brings together the best and the brightest in the cancer community, facilitating collaboration to help new therapies move from the laboratory to the patient.
FabFitFun will guarantee a minimum donation amount of $50,000 USD in connection with these promotions. Your donation may be tax-deductible, but because taxes are dependent on your individual circumstances, you should check with your tax advisor.
50 frontline workers across America are driving home new cars this month, after they were nominated as heroes in the 2020 Mazda Heroes program.
CBS-2 – Youtube
Mazda, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary, announced in October it was giving away fifty brand new MX-5 Miata 100th Anniversary Special Edition models, with each car destined for individuals who “tirelessly dedicated themselves to their communities throughout 2020” through “selfless acts, creative thinking and contributions to community.”
After receiving 1,000 inspiring nominations from across the nation which embody the car company’s value of “omotenashi”—putting other’s needs first—they selected 50 heroes, including three from New York City, who recently picked their new cars up at a dealership in Queens. (See video below.)
“This year has been full of challenges and we wanted to lean into our brand’s heritage of finding innovative ways to brighten people’s lives,” Mazda North America President Jeff Guyton said.
The selected Mazda Heroes selflessly leveraged personal skills and resources to care for those in need, from creating free grocery delivery services, to partnering with local restaurants to provide free meals to healthcare workers, to a musician who created curbside concerts for a senior community that had to remain indoors.
One of the winners, Jason Erdreich, used his skills as a shop teacher in Randoph, New Jersey, and his access to 3-D printers, to print 12,000 pieces of PPE for medical workers who were in dire need of equipment.
Triana Davis, a teacher in Byram, Mississippi created and hand-delivered custom curricula to her students and produced special commemorative t-shirts, goodie bags, and custom-engraved medals, after the pandemic cancelled graduation ceremonies.
An ICU nurse in The Woodlands, Texas, Christie Purviance worked grueling 15-hour days throughout the pandemic, yet always treating her patients like family. She delivered photos of patients’ family members who couldn’t visit, and helped facilitate video chats with loved ones—all while leaving daily sticky-notes of encouragement.
Another winner, Leandro de Araujo Pessoa of Lansing, Michigan lost his job after the lockdown hit in March, but he ended up using all his extra time to become the leader of a food pantry run by a local church. He devoted his time and a portion of his unemployment checks to the food pantry to keep it stocked with all the items necessary.
Mazda hopes that by acknowledging their achievements, these 50 heroes will feel empowered to continue to giving back to those around them.
WATCH the winners picking up cars in New York…
SHARE the Convertible Joy With Friends on Social Media…
Quote of the Day: “To disagree, one does not have to be disagreeable.” – Barry Goldwater (5x Republican U.S. Senator from Arizona)
Photo by: Johannes Plenio
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
As kids, when snow began to fall in earnest, many of us waited with bated breath, fingers crossed, for word of school closings. Snow days were a special treat; an unexpected holiday, a chance to trade in books and blackboards for sleds and snowball fights.
Over the past year, in light of escalating stress over the pandemic and its far-ranging fallout, it was sometimes hard to keep sight of life’s simple joys, but in Jefferson County, West Virginia, school superintendent Bondy Shay Gibson never lost focus on the bigger picture and what truly matters.
When a major snowstorm was forecast for her district, Gibson took the initiative to close the schools, but she also seized the moment to remind her community that nourishing the spirit is sometimes just as important as fueling the intellect.
The carpe diem announcement she posted to Facebook, reminding parents to simply enjoy this time out of time to let their kids just be kids quickly snowballed in popularity, garnering in the neighborhood of 17,000 shares in just a few days:
“For generations, families have greeted the first snow day of the year with joy. It is a time of renewed wonder at all the beautiful things that each season holds. A reminder of how fleeting a childhood can be. An opportunity to make some memories with your family that you hold onto for life.”
… It has been a year of seemingly endless loss and the stress of trying to make up for that loss. For just a moment, we can all let go of the worry of making up for the many things we missed by making sure this is one thing our kids won’t lose this year.
So please, enjoy a day of sledding and hot chocolate and cozy fires. Take pictures of your kids in snow hats they will outgrow by next year and read books that you have wanted to lose yourself in, but haven’t had the time. We will return to the serious and urgent business of growing up on Thursday, but for tomorrow—go build a snowman.”
Snowstorms come and go, but creating memories with our loved ones can last a lifetime. Now, perhaps more than ever, when we’re blessed with the unexpected opportunity to write a joyful chapter in our family history books, we should welcome it with open hearts.
Cherished remembrances of the simple shared pleasures we forge today may well offer strength and comfort in challenging times, and ultimately, be what sustains us and gives us hope for brighter days ahead.
SHARE This Joyful Story With Pals on Social Media…
18 months into the first serious clinical trials of CRISPR gene therapy for sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia—and all patients are free from symptoms and have not needed blood transfusions.
Sickle cell disease (SCD) can cause a variety of health problems including episodes of severe pain, called vaso-occlusive crises, as well as organ damage and strokes.
Patients with transfusion-dependent thalassemia (TDT) are dependent on blood transfusions from early childhood.
The only available cure for both diseases is a bone marrow transplant from a closely related donor, an option that is not available for the vast majority of patients because of difficulty locating matched donors, the cost, and the risk of complications.
The clinical trials involve collecting stem cells from the patients. Researchers edit the stem cells using CRISPR-Cas9 and infuse the gene-modified cells into the patients. Patients remain in the hospital for approximately one month following the infusion.
Prior to receiving their modified cells, the seven patients with beta thalassemia required blood transfusions approximately every three to four weeks and the three patients with SCD suffered episodes of severe pain roughly every other month.
All the individuals with beta thalassemia have been transfusion independent since receiving the treatment, a period ranging between two and 18 months.
Similarly, none of the individuals with SCD have experienced vaso-occlusive crises since CTX001 infusion. All patients showed a substantial and sustained increase in the production of fetal hemoglobin.
Before receiving CRISPR gene therapy, Gray worried that the altitude change would cause an excruciating pain attack while flying. Now she no longer worries about such things.
She told NPR of her trip to Washington, D.C: “It was one of those things I was waiting to get a chance to do… It was exciting. I had a window. And I got to look out the window and see the clouds and everything.”
This December, the New England Journal of Medicinepublished the first peer-reviewed research paperfrom the study—it focuses on Gray and the first TDT patient who was treated with an infusion of billions of edited cells into their body.
“There is a great need to find new therapies for beta thalassemia and sickle cell disease,” said Haydar Frangoul, MD, Medical Director of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at Sarah Cannon Research Institute, HCA Healthcare’s TriStar Centennial Medical Center. “What we have been able to do through this study is a tremendous achievement. By gene editing the patient’s own stem cells we may have the potential to make this therapy an option for many patients facing these blood diseases.”
Because of the precise way CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing works, Dr. Frangoul suggested the technique could potentially cure or ameliorate a variety of diseases that have genetic origins.
A green-thumbed Brit has grown the ultimate collection of house plants, including a species worth $15,500 a leaf.
SWNS
30-year-old Tony Le-Britton turned his lounge into a jungle and transformed his spare room into an incredible greenhouse to nurture his passion.
He has collected some of the world’s rarest plants—including one previously thought to have been extinct.
And Tony, from Gloucestershire, England is now hawking the leaves of another rare species for thousands of dollars per leaf to eager collectors.
He’s not only good at grooming plants, he is a top hair and beauty photographer professionally.
His prized possession? That’d be the Rhaphidophora Tetrasperma Variegata—the most valuable species in his collection.
“The non-variegated plant is really common—you can pick it up in most supermarkets and garden centers,” Tony said. “But my version, a genetic mutation—it’s completely random, which makes it rare. It’s the only one in the world [with that leaf pattern].”
“I have already taken three pre-orders at £12,000 each, per leaf. There’s a waiting list. I have had so many people contacting me. It’s like growing money on trees!”
Tony is also the proud owner of a Monastera sp Bolivia—which is currently undocumented by science.
“It’s from a botanical collector in Austria. I got it as a very small piece of stem. It’s grown to huge proportions.”
“I put a picture online and a botanist in the field in Bolivia got in touch with me asking for more pictures—he had no record of the plant.”
“The only way to find out what it truly is is to find it in the wild. Using the stem and leaf, we can then identify the family it belongs to.”
A Begonia Chloristica, an exotic plant previously thought to have been lost in the wild, also has a special place in Tony’s greenhouse.
According to Tony, it was thought to be extinct up until a couple of years ago—and he found one from a collector in Europe.
Tony credits his interest in plants to his grandparents, who would take him to their garden when he was a small boy.
SWNS
He also remembers sitting at his grandmother’s feet and watching the popular BBC television show ‘Gardener’s World’.
The ‘Gardener’s World’ television show has even been in touch about doing an episode from his house, which he described as life coming “full circle”.
Tony has never worked out the total cost of his collection—but guessed that it be could be significant: “From an insurance point of view, it’s definitely added to the value. It’s probably worth more than some houses!
Americans are holding their loved ones tighter as they look to close out 2020 with a sense of optimism, according to a new poll.
A new survey of 2,000 Americans found that nearly 70% say this year has made them appreciative of their family and friends more than ever before.
As a result, two-thirds are adamant about putting more thought into the gifts they give their loved ones this year.
The poll, conducted by Groupon, aimed to discover how 2020 has impacted the holiday shopping habits of Americans and discovered 76% are hoping to get gifts for loved ones that uplift their spirits while a further three in five plan on getting more personalized gifts for others this year.
Besides gifting others with something that brings a smile to their face, 56% are planning to buy gifts that can be used after all the lockdown measures are lifted.
Since we all know the 2020 holiday season is going to look different than any other year, people are still looking forward to certain aspects of the holidays in this unconventional year.
From being home and not having to travel (44%) to watching holiday movies (41%), people are excited about the holidays this year—even if it is slightly different.
This optimism is in line with the essence of the holiday season. But, how are Americans staying so optimistic about the holidays despite the pandemic?
Forty-eight percent say listening to music allows them to maintain their optimism while a further 38% say diving into their favorite book is a great way to keep their spirits up.
Overall, 48% of Americans stay optimistic by spending time with their immediate family and another third of people say they like to spend time outdoors.
As a way to break free from all the stress of 2020, two-thirds of those surveyed are also treating themselves to a gift when shopping for others this year.
This trend is unique to 2020, as 43% say they don’t normally get themselves a gift for the holidays. In fact, the average American plans on spending over $100 solely on self-gifting this holiday season.
TOP 5 THINGS AMERICANS ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS HOLIDAY SEASON
Being home (not traveling)
Eating/drinking
Exchanging gifts
Watching holiday movies
Cooking for family
TOP 5 WAYS PEOPLE STAY OPTIMISTIC
Listening to music
Spending time with others
Watching a favorite movie/TV show
Reading a favorite book
Self-care (‘me-time’)
TOP 5 HOLIDAY SELF-GIFTS
Dinner
Clothes
Staycation/road trip
Wine delivery
Spa day
SHARE the Silver Lining From 2020 With Your Own Loved Ones…
A restaurant owner known for feeding anyone—regardless of whether they can pay for their meal—nearly lost his business because of the pandemic. Then the local community began giving in the most generous way.
Kazi Mannan, GoFundMe
Since a family member posted a GoFundMe campaign for his D.C. restaurant, Sakina Halal Grill, Kazi Mannan has received over $331,430 from more than 7,100 people—and the donations keep rolling in.
“I used to preach don’t let anybody fall, and pick them them up,” said to his donors in an interview with NBC Washington. “You picked me up and I am overwhelmed. I have tears in my eyes … tears of joy. Thank you, thank you, America. Thank you, generous people.”
Many of the thousands donating see Mannan as the generous one. Before COVID-19 hit, he was serving up 80 free meals to people in need every day day.
“I used to see people looking for food in trash cans. It would break my heart,” Mannan told NBC.
The streets of downtown D.C. became deserted as people began working from home in the pandemic. Mannan had to let his employees go. He had to close the grill.
At a loss, a family member decided to launch a GoFundMe campaign for the popular restaurant on November 11. Abdul Mannan wrote:
“We are underwater and looking to survive this season so the doors do not close on Sakina Halal Grill… Every cent is equally important in keeping this dream, and important community resource, alive so please do what you can. We appreciate your support and prayers.”
With that campaign still going strong more than a month on, the restaurant that serves anyone—no matter their circumstances—looks set to last through these difficult times.
(WATCH the NBC video below for more on this story of real kindness.)
RESTORE Your Friends’ Faith in Humanity By Sharing This Story…
Quote of the Day: “All of us every single year, we’re a different person. I don’t think we’re the same person all our lives.” – Steven Spielberg (turns 74 today)
Photo by: Johannes Plenio
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Paul Stamets with agarikon, Dusty Yao Stamets, CC license
There are some people born to this earth in whom a particular purpose or pursuit is embodied in such a complete way as to make them seem its avatar. Paul Stamets is such a man—The Crocodile Hunter, but for Mushrooms—a world-leading mycologist who eats, grows, lives, breathes, sells, and even wears, fungi.
Dusty Yao Stamets, CC license
Now, the famous mushroom scientist wants to create a research station on a remote island to protect old-growth forests containing a rare type of ancient fungus which he believes could protect people against COVID-19, or even future pandemics.
The coronavirus is a natural fit, as Paul Stamets, an expert in the medicinal-use and history of fungi, explains, because for thousands of years fungus was used to treat respiratory infections.
Some will have heard of Stamets through his TED Talk,6 Ways Mushrooms Can Save the World, which garnered three million views on YouTube, or from his two appearances on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast when he gave the host one of his hats made from mushrooms.
Others might have read his book: Mycelium Running, or come across numerous journalistic reports on his famous use of mycelium to clean up oil spills, and even nuclear radiation.
Regarding the current pandemic, the agarikon mushroom which Stamets has found in plentiful supply in the old-growth forests of British Columbia’s Cortes Island is just one of several species that he’s working with to cure the ills of the world.
“This rare, old-growth mushroom has a multi-thousand-year history of use in Europe,” Stamets told Rochelle Baker at Canada’s National Observer, while doing research on the island.
Stamets notes that ancient Greek physician Dioscorides actually described agarikon in his works, calling it the elixir of long life—particularly when used to treat tuberculosis.
He has used other species, such as the Garden Giant, and the oyster mushroom, to advance his science called myco-restoration, by proving they can clean up septic runoff and toxic hydrocarbon oil spills both in the ocean and on land respectively.
Mycorrhizal fungi, he hypothesized in an online manifesto entitled “The Nuclear Forest Recovery Zone,” are able to absorb and remove heavy metals, including actual radioactive isotopes, from the soil.
The third branch
If you are lacking a knowledge of mycelia, the vegetative part of a fungus, Stamets’ body of work is like walking into the best museums you’ve ever been to, as there are many simple truths about mushrooms that are simply mind-blowing, but not often told.
Long after plants split off from the genetic lineage of animals to form the second kingdom, fungi developed, like us, to 1111breath oxygen and release carbon dioxide. They get their energy from eating other organisms, rather than through photosynthesis.
Their network of roots and filaments, called mycelium, invented the first soil in the dim light of eons past by breaking down the long molecular chains of tough minerals. Under the microscope, mycelium networks appear to transmit copious amounts of information that appears much more like the neural brain-wave oscillations that characterize human neurons firing than the equivalent patterns in plants.
And, like us, they produce compounds to defend themselves against bacteria and viruses.
There may be something hippie about that claim, but, far from toting the benefits of “essential oils,” fungi have a more impressive medical CV—after all, it spawned a certain important compound known as penicillin, isolated by Alexander Fleming from the penicillium rubens mold in 1929.
The value of Cortes Island
Stamets calls the agarikon mushrooms of Cortes Island “too valuable while living” to harvest. They can survive between 75-150 years, but are endangered in Europe and rare in North America. Stamets, who claims Cortes Island should be renamed “Agarikon Island,” is trying to capture as many strains as possible by taking small samples of the fruiting bodies he finds to help the species recover.
“When we cut down the old-growth forests, we are potentially losing genomic libraries that could have a strain of fungi that could have enormous implications for human biosecurity, and moreover, habitat health,” Stamets told Baker at the National Observer.
He clarifies that old-growth forests, therefore, should be viewed as a defense against future pandemics.
Stamets is researching agarikon and other forgotten or unknown species of mushrooms on his Fungi Perfecti farm, where he grows all types of fungi to sell to health food stores, labs, or those looking to utilize his methods of pollution cleanup. This includes new species of magic mushrooms that he grows following the expert advice provided by online mycologists. These guides include how to properly spawn spores for magic mushrooms inside your home and complete the growing process.
Lacking any academic paper-on-the-wall accreditation or affiliation with any lab or university, Stamets funds all his research from Fungi Perfecti sales.
Although research on mushroom use for just about anything is extremely limited to individuals like Stamets or cutting-edge superfood companies, they have been used as food and medicine for thousands of years, and changing attitudes in thousands of North Americans towards slimy, deep-forest toadstools associated more often with decay and toxicity than nutrition and viral-defense comes down to the work of people like the Crocodile Hunter of Mushrooms.
(Watch as Stamets goes on a walk to find agarikon mushrooms in B.C.)
SHARE This Fascinating News With Pals on Social Media…
While many folks can reel off their names by rote, did you know there’s a pretty good chance that Santa’s entire reindeer posse is female? It’s true.
Nicholas LaFargue
The names aren’t gender-specific—Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner (“Donder” in the original Clement Moore poem), and Blitzen—and we’re guessing savvy St. Nick wisely opted for an all-girl sled-pulling squad on purpose.
You want proof?
Even though they are mythical reindeer we’re talking about, there’s actual evidence to support the femme-centric reindeer theory—and it’s all about the antlers.
It seems that male reindeer shed theirs in early December, just after the mating season, while female reindeer retain their headgear all winter long. In pretty much every depiction of St. Nick making his iconic Christmas Eve run, the team pulling his sleigh are sporting antlers, ergo, said reindeer are female.
Before we rest our case, there’s actually another practical reason for Santa to have hitched his harnesses to an estrogen-powered team: Female reindeer have about a 45% greater fat-to-body-mass ratio than their male counterparts. This extra tissue serves as insulation that keeps them warm in frigid conditions as low as minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 43 degrees Celsius), and baby, it’s cold outside—especially in the upper atmosphere.
In an article for Live Science, Physiologist Perry Barboza of the Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska at Fairbanks, who studies the creatures and their close cousins, the caribou, likens female reindeer to “seals on hooves,” since seals are similarly equipped with toasty internal padding.
Of course, the extra fat layer means extra weight, so how do the female reindeer manage to fly so fast while hauling a prodigiously not-so-slim man and the world’s largest sack of toys?
Magic, of course.
Okay, okay, so maybe the main reindeer squadron is female, but what about Rudolph, you ask?
Well, as it turns out, Rudolph, created in 1939 by department-store copywriter Robert L. May, may in fact be the only male reindeer in the bunch.
Before finding fame in song as well as on film and television, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was the hero of what amounts to an anti-bullying-themed children’s story. In the book’s original cover art, Rudolph’s red nose may be shining beacon-bright—but he’s not sporting antlers, only cute little nubbins.
Fair use, Marion Books
So, is Rudolph’s antler deficit due to the fact he’s a juvenile reindeer… or is it because he’s a boy? We’ll leave that up to you.
GNN is happy to announce that we’ve partnered with FabFitFun to promote their “Winter Box” and GNN users will receive $10 off the box using code ‘GNN10.’ And, perhaps the best part: $10 from each box sold using our code will be donated to support Stand Up To Cancer.
